John Roberts Econ 490 fall 2014

Actually this class is very different compared to others; not only in terms of content, it also has unique ways of studying for homework and blog posting. Since this is the first 400+ class that I've ever taken, I actually thought it was a little bit hard for me at first. Then when I went over the excel and read the book, I found myself on the right track to study this course and really enjoyed it. So I would say this class is a process of exploring for me.  Before signing up for this class, I actually didn't have a clue about what this course was about. But as I started, I found the economy in organization is much more complicated and interesting than other economic courses. In my micro or macro econ classes, most I learned was about theories and didn't talk a lot of examples in real life. That's why I like the class discussion because you always get prepared for some examples in real life, which makes the content much easier to understand. Also, I struggled f...

Personal Reputation and Behavior Thinking of my own experience working with others and feedbacks that I've received recently, I would say being reliable is one of my reputation that I developed since freshman year.  I value efficiency and hate procrastinating. So whenever I work with others or I work alone, I have the habit to make a plan and stick to my schedule. In my typical day, after I went back home from classes, I would list the things that I need to finish today and write them in the app "evernote". Then I started working, checking one by one until finish all the work. I found this work well for me because when I check something out after I finish the work, the feeling of achievement motivates me to keep going. So that's the reason I've never missed any due day for homework, paper or anything.  In the terms of working with others, I always keep a self-motivated pace and impact others as well. As the assistant treasurer in my organization, I'm no...

Principle-Agent Triangle Model The triangle relationship might cause conflicts because the two principles have different standards of what is called a "good performance". As the example like a lawyer, he or she is probably expected to solve the case as soon as possible and earn high profits from customers by the law firm. But from the perspective of customers, a good performance is expected to be responsibility, great efforts or simply wining in the case. Since two principles' have different views on agent's performance, it gets hard to satisfy both sides at the same time for agent. Actually the example given in the class is a little bit different. Regulators who worked in government is likely to work in companies which they have involved with after they retired. So in this situation, government needs to maximize overall benefit in the market, while companies are more interested in industry profits. So when the agents (regulators) satisfy government interest,...

The conflict between Anne and Harry is really an interesting example for group dynamics. It seems impossible to avoid conflict within any organizations because people have different personalities, communication skills, working abilities and perspectives. When working together, someone like Harry, acting somewhat arrogant and condescending, is going to create unpleasant experience. Even he has great experience and strong working skills, it seems he is tend to over control the marketing plans and is exclusive to other opinions. Actually from my own experience, I haven't experienced serious conflict within organizations. But recently, in my RSO Intercultural Community Development Initiative (ICDI), I've experienced some conflict ideas. Since I'm the assistant treasurer, I'm working with group members and fundraising chair to get prepare for our first fundraising event on the quad. In our proposal we planned to sell cookies, tea eggs (which is a traditional Chinese snacks...

Gifts Exchanges in Team Production I actually really enjoy reading this article, especially the description about the experiment with children and the discussion about the implication. The result is actually not surprising. When the resources are already there, people naturally act self-interest because there seems no reason for sharing. But when people pull the rope at the same time, the efforts suddenly bound them together and make them have this tendency to sharing the rewards. I believe this is because of the feeling of group production. When the rewards take some effort and people have to cooperate, the group production leads to the gift exchange. This reminds me the experience of working with other students in calculus discussion section. During the discussion we'll be randomly assigned to group of three or four and to finish the worksheet together. Then TA would give everyone the same score based on one person's worksheet. That means in order to get good grades,...

Managing Future Income Risk Since now I'm a sophomore, I don't really have a specific idea about what kind of company I would work in and how much salary I would earn. But I know that I'm interested in working in companies and I enjoy working with different people. With a strong sense of responsibility, I found myself do well both in academy and organizations I've involved in.  The first thing I think is related the most to my income is the major. Currently I am double majored in Economics and Psychology. The reason I choose Econ is that I believe it can helps me to think critically and learn how to use limited resources to maximize the outcome. Though a lot of topics are related to the markets, firms, financial problems, I think it can provide me well both in econ topics and other knowledge that I need if I want to work in big companies related to international trade, etc. And also, it is closely related to daily life choices which lead us to efficiency. Actuall...

Illinibucks It is interesting to imagine that students could use illinibucks as some sort of "money" to exchange for some privilege, such as registering for classes and housing, going to office hours, a spot for popular sports games or shows on campus.  So in the first place, the illinibucks should allocated to every students in the same quantity every month or every semester. No matter the student is a freshman or a senior, he or she should have the same right to get access to illinibucks. The illinibucks might expire just like credits in the i-card if students don't use it during certain period. Because if students could accumulate illinibucks over semesters, it would probably give incentive to students to overuse illinibucks after accumulating for a long time, which might give other students inconvenience if the student always use illinibucks to get the priority in office hour. Thus in this way, students would try to use illinibucks properly during every perio...

Organization Structure and High Function My most familiar organization is ICDI (Intercultural Community Development Initiative) . It is an RSO on campus and our mission is to promote communication between domestic and international students on campus so that our community could be more inclusive. But carrying a bigger dream to ultimately eliminate barriers between individuals from different backgrounds in the world, we have the plan to become an official Nonprofit Organization. In my own experience in ICDI, our structure is more like dual authority system, or actually I should say "triple authority". Because besides president, there are three people given authority in three different specific areas and lead three different groups: Industrial Development, Public Relations and Financial Affairs. Thus, as mentioned in the textbook, the information flows from general members to the individuals who are in the authority in each division first. But I'll say that the communic...

Opportunism The first impression of "opportunism" for me is taking opportunity as it is possible to improve one's situation, which might bring negative outcomes for others, or might bring benefits for oneself without hurting others. But people sometimes act irrationally. They sometimes let opportunity go away regardless of the potential benefits. The reasons are various. Some are driven by morality and education of being a good citizen. And others might have an expectation for the future: they believe better opportunity would show up, thus giving up the current chances and wait for the "one". I remembered that a few years ago, probably in 2008, there was a huge catastrophic earthquake in China, in which about 70,000 people died. It was totally a disaster. Since the location that the earthquake occurs is around by mountains, adding that it occurred during midnight, many people didn't get a chance to escape to a safe place. Hundreds of thousands of relief ...

Organization Structure I have a personal experience working in the organization called  Intercultural Community Development Initiative( ICDI).  Since we started our organization at the end of last semester, we're still on the process of applying for RSO position currently. Our organization has this mission to promote intercultural communications and eliminate barriers between people on campus. Thus what we do is building up workshops for both domestic students and internationals students to get involved in communication with each other. The workshops can be half-day or one day during weekends. And the content includes different activities such as stereotype awareness, community sense building, etc. The structure in our organization is simple. There are three divisions: Industrial Development(ID), Public Relations(PR), and Financial Affairs(FA). The board members are the core of the organization, with three divisions differing in responsibilities and engaging in collabo...

John Roberts is a professor of Economics, Strategic Management at Stanford University. He is interested in international business, organization of the firm and connection between strategy and organization. He has published enormous articles and paper, mainly focusing on the reason that organizations take different strategies. According to him, the information differences are the main cause. Also he contributed in techniques to make conclusions from economic models. John Roberts teaches mainly about strategy and organization, with strong attention in multinational business. He wrote two books, The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth; and Economics, Organization, and Management. He is honored as Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award, Stanford GSB in 2005 and Fundacion BBVA IESE Prize for Contributions of Economics to Management in 2009. Source: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/john-roberts